Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families are committing to closing the Polk County Detention Center. For more information, please visit our campaign page.
Every day tens of thousands of immigrants languish in our nation's vast immigrant detention system. The private prison industry treats immigrant detention as a highly profitable new market. To ensure a steady stream of immigrant detainees, the industry lobbies for and drafts harsh anti-immigrant legislation. Grassroots Leadership fights the growth of the immigrant detention and deportation industry through grassroots organizing and research.
Stopping the growth of the detention system
Grassroots Leadership works to build a movement to reduce reliance on immigration detention. Along with our allies at Texans United for Families, we have organized dozens of protests at detention facilities in Texas to raise awareness about the plight of detained immigrants.
We work with communities to stop the expansion of harsh immigration enforcement programs like Secure Communities and 287(g) that turn local police and jailers into immigration enforcers. These programs have lead hundreds of thousands of deportations and created mistrust between immigrants and the police, but have swelled the detained population and enriched for-profit prison corporations.
Research & Publications
NPR used our research on prison corporations' campaign contributions in their two-part investigative report on how prison corporations shape anti-immigrant laws. We help communities in Texas and across the country fight the construction of new immigrant detention centers. To this end, we have published Considering a Private Jail, Prison or Detention Center? A Resource Packet for Community Members and Public Officials.
We also provide extensive research on Operation Streamline, a program that shifts immigration enforcement into the criminal justice system, through our Operation Streamline Watch blog.
Grassroots Leadership is a member of Detention Watch Network.